


Sofia and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

by aflyingcontradiction



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-10 03:10:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12289971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aflyingcontradiction/pseuds/aflyingcontradiction
Summary: Sofia wakes up after the worst night of her life. She didn’t think things could get so much worse. Or so much weirder, for that matter.Based on http://putthepromptsonpaper.tumblr.com/: “Shut up and gimme something fix this mess!” “I-It’s gushing blood, I think we should go to a hospital” “No hospital! No-goddamn-hospital, you got it? Gimme that sewing kit of yours, I’m gonna stitch this shit up and we’re good to go!”





	Sofia and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

Sofia groaned as the light coming through the open curtains hit her eyes. Her head was pounding, her mouth bone dry. She tried to sit up, but immediately felt so dizzy, she had to sink back into her pillows.

“Fuuuuuck.”

She stared up at the red numbers her alarm clock was projecting onto the white ceiling. 7.06 am. Another wonderful morning in this wonderful life. Bits and pieces of last night’s events flitted through her mind. She bent over the edge of the bed to look for the bottle of vodka she knew had to be here somewhere. She couldn’t see it, but the puddle of alcohol seeping out from beneath the bed suggested it had fallen over. Sofia sighed. She couldn’t do anything right, could she?

Slowly she pushed herself up. Retched. Sat up on her bed. Retched again. Tried to get up. And immediately doubled over and puked. A trickle of alcohol, stomach acid and a couple of half-digested pills joined the puddle on the floor that was now slowly seeping into the crumpled pieces of paper near the desk.

Sofia would have loved to collapse on the floor, but she didn’t fancy landing in her own puke, so she slowly got up and dragged herself over to the desk.

She looked at her phone. Someone had left a voice message.

“Where the fuck are you, woman? You’re supposed to be helping me open up! You know you’re going to get fired if you call in sick again, right? The manager’s seriously pissed! You are the most unreliable motherfucker I have ever met in my entire life. GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE!”

Sofia sighed. Yes, she had just thought about calling in sick. Guess she wouldn’t do that after all. She looked down at herself. She had never taken off her work shirt yesterday. It was now wrinkled and stained with substances she didn’t really want to think about and she was sure she stank to high heavens, but it was 7.30, so this had to do. She put on the first jacket she could find.

“Ouch!”

She had pricked one of her fingers on a random sewing needle that had worked its way into the jacket sleeve. That fucking sewing kit! She still vaguely remembered throwing it at the wall in anger yesterday. Worst gift she had ever gotten.

As she grabbed her car keys and hurried out of the door, she briefly wondered whether she was safe to drive, but ... “Ah, screw it!”

She got in the car and drove off. It was a twenty minute drive through the city, but Sofia wasn’t paying any attention to the road. She was trying to remember last night, wondering what she’d done wrong. She’d done everything just the way that site said, hadn’t she? But it was all so fuzzy now. She must have messed up somewhere along the way. Big surprise.

Stopping at a red light, Sofia rubbed her aching head. How could she have screwed up so badly?

“Get out of the car!”

It took Sofia a moment to react. She turned her head to figure out where the noise was coming from. A figure in a black balaclava had ripped open her passenger door and was pointing a gun at her.

Sofia frowned.

“You want me to get out?”

“Did I fucking stutter? Get the hell out of the car!”

Sofia’s eyes flitted back and forth between her attacker’s hidden face and the gun. Then she replied: “No.”

“WHAT?”

“Did I fucking stutter? I said No.”

“Lady, do you have a death wish?”

Sofia didn’t answer.

“If you don’t get out right this second, I’m going to shoot your ass.”

“Go ahead.”

“Oh, fuck this shit.”

Her attacker jumped in the car and pulled the door closed behind them. They pointed the gun at Sofia’s head.

“Then fucking drive.”

“I really don’t have time for this shit today. I’m already late, but if you want to tag along while I drive to work, feel free.”

With a “Crazy bitch!” Sofia’s attacker made a grab for the wheel. Sofia tried to fight them off.

“Let go!”

“Hell no!”

“I don’t have time for this shi...”

BANG!

Sofia’s head snapped forward and hit the windshield. Everything went black.

\-----------------------------

When Sofia opened her eyes, she immediately knew something was wrong. Something apart from her head hurting worse than before and a thin trickle of blood making its way down her face. Something apart from a female voice beside her going “Oh God. Oh fuck. Oh shit. No. No.” It took a moment for Sofia’s vision to clear. She moved her hand to wipe away the blood and found, to her relief, that her body still obeyed her mind. She looked over at the passenger seat. Her attacker’s balaclava had slipped off to reveal the face of a young woman of Sofia’s age with short braids and bruises all over her face who was now swearing profusely and holding her right arm, which had a large bleeding gash in it.

And then she looked out of her car window and saw it. The sky was bright green. Shit!

“Do you see that?” Sofia shouted to the woman next to her. She didn’t even care that that woman had just threatened her with a gun. She just needed someone to confirm that the sky was actually bright fucking green and that the crash hadn’t given her brain damage.

“Wait, you’re seeing that, too? The sky, I mean.”

Sofia nodded.

“What the hell.”

“We’ve got to get to a hospital.”

“Hell no!”

“You’re bleeding.”

“I’m not going to a fucking hospital. I’m getting the hell out of here.”

She tried to open the passenger door, but it seemed to be jammed and her injured arm wasn’t helping.

Sofia pulled open her own door with relative ease. She stumbled out of the car and looked around. Sofia had expected cops or ambulances, something, but she couldn’t even see who had crashed into them. In fact, she couldn’t see any other cars. There weren’t even any people around. Apart from her own wrecked car, the road was completely empty.

“What ... the ... HELL is going on here?”

Sofia flinched. It seemed her attacker had finally managed to crawl out of the wreckage. She was still holding her bleeding arm and clearly in pain, but she looked about as terrified as Sofia felt. This was not okay. None of this was okay at all. Sofia almost hoped that she’d gotten brain damage, but if she had, would her attacker be seeing the exact same, impossible thing?

“I don’t know,” Sofia whispered. “But we’ve got to get that arm of yours fixed. You are going to die.” That was useful to point out, right? That still held true, even if the sky was green and a bustling city had suddenly emptied of all signs of human life in the time it took for a car to crash.

“I’ll be fine,” said her attacker in a clearly pained voice. “I just need something to sew this shit up.”

“I-I’ve got a sewing kit at home,” said Sofia, feeling very stupid, but what the hell else were you supposed to say in a situation like this? Maybe the clever thing would be to just leave the other woman to her fate. After all, she had pointed a gun at her and tried to steal her car. But Sofia couldn’t really do that, could she? Not with the way her attacker was bleeding.

“Alright, where’s home?”

“Just down the road. I’d only just left when you... woah.”

A weird shadow had fallen over them, making Sofia look up. It looked like there was a hole in the sky, just above their heads. The other woman had seen it, too.

“Fucking hell! Let’s get out of here! Where do you live?”

“Should be about a twenty minute walk this way,” Sofia pointed down the road. “Are you sure you don’t want me to call an ambulance?”

“Just take me to your place.”

“You don’t look like you’ll make it that far.” Sofia wasn’t even sure she would make it that far. The world was spinning around her. She grabbed for something to hold on to, but couldn’t find anything and ended up throwing out her arms for balance like a tightrope walker.

“Just worry about your own fucking business and ... RUN!”

Sofia followed the other woman’s gaze and gasped. Something large was moving in the hole in the sky.

She ran. Or rather, her legs ran, taking her along for the ride. Her head was still spinning, but somehow she managed to make it to the front door of her apartment building. Her attacker was still behind her, dragging herself along somehow, leaving a trail of blood in her wake. 

How was she even still conscious? For that matter, how was Sofia herself still conscious. Her head was still reeling and she wasn’t sure if it was from the crash or from - well – everything else!

Sofia grabbed her key – thank God, it was still in her pocket – and unlocked the front door. Her attacker – she didn’t look so threatening now, with her clothes all ripped, sweat dripping down her face, blood staining the makeshift bandage around her arm – pushed her way past her.

They entered Sofia’s apartment. Suddenly, Sofia was feeling very self-conscious about the mess she had left. It was so silly to worry about that now, when apparently the world was ending around them, but she couldn’t help herself.

“Sorry for ...”

“Shut up and give me something to fix this mess.”

“Listen...” Sofia realised she had no idea what the other woman’s name was. “I’m feeling kinda queasy. And you really don’t look too well. I-it’s ...” No, she wasn’t going to beat around the bush. That woman had to know how bad this looked. “It’s gushing blood, I have no idea how you’re even still alive. We should go to a hospital.”

“No hospital! No-goddamn-hospital, you got it? Give me that sewing kit of yours, I’m gonna stitch this shit up and we’re good to go!”

“Good to go? Seriously, you shouldn’t...”

“Do you have something to disinfect this shit? Like ... alcohol or something.”

Sofia gestured at the puddle on the floor.

“Oh, ha fucking ha.”

“Well, sorry I don’t keep disinfectant in stock just in case someone sticks me up and then crashes my fucking car.”

“Oh, don’t get your panties in a twist. Where’s that sewing kit?”

“Over there.” Sofia pointed at the upside down box on the floor.

“Wow, you’re a mess.”

Sofia snorted. “You know your face looks like someone took a baseball bat to it, right?”

The woman ignored her comment. “You might want to look away if you’re squeamish.”

She had picked up needle and thread and dropped down on Sofia’s bed.

Sofia stared out of the window to tune out the pained hisses and “Oh, fuck”s coming from her bed. The streets were still empty, the sky still green, but she couldn’t see the hole in the sky they had run from.

It felt like an eternity, but eventually she heard her attacker get up off the bed and rummage around her room. She turned around to see the woman pick up one of the crumpled pieces of paper on the floor.

“I’m sorry. I’ve tried to be different, but I just can’t,” she read.

“Hey!” Sofia ripped the letter from her hand. “That’s private, you know!”

“Who were you writing to?”

“None of your fucking business! You wave a gun in my face, make me fucking crash, bleed all over my floor …” Suddenly Sophie no longer knew where she had been going with any of this. Why was she even talking to this woman? She ought to be on the phone with the police! But then they probably didn’t take phone calls on days with green skies. With a resigned sigh Sofia concluded: “You haven’t even told me your name!”

“Pity.”

“Oh, that’s lovely, snarking at me after I’ve practically saved your life AFTER you tried to rob me.”

“I wasn’t fucking ‘snarking’ at you, you dumbass. Pity’s my name!”

“You’re shitting me.”

‘Pity’ – what kind of parent named their child ‘Pity’ anyway – didn’t answer, so Sofia turned back to the window. There was something big moving just at the edge of the horizon. Sofia frowned. Whatever it was, it looked like it was coming closer. It was black and long and scaly and …

“FUCK!”

“No need to be rude, I’m sure your name sucks, too.”

“No, no, look!”

The weird thing was now clearly in view: it was a huge, black, scaly tentacle tracking ooze the colour of the sky along the street and clearly headed their way.

“Holy shit! Get away from the window!”

“No shit!”

Sofia threw herself to the floor. Pity landed next to her.

“Do you think that thing is looking for us?” she asked.

“N-no ... no ... I don’t think ... well, I hope not,” Sofia answered.

“Who else is there to look for? There’s nobody else around!”

“How do you know that thing can look for anything?”

“I don’t, but I don’t want to risk it. Shut up and listen!”

Sofia didn’t need to be told twice. Something was banging on the walls with the force of a jackhammer, making the whole apartment shake. Sofia didn’t dare breathe. Pity was now so close to her that Sofia could feel her shaking. What if that thing could sense them? She reached out to grab Pity’s hand. Pity jumped and gasped audibly. She shot Sofia a quizzical look.

\-----------------------------

It felt like an eternity, but eventually the earthquake-like bangs disappeared.

“Do you think it’s gone?” whispered Sofia.

“I’m not going to look.”

“Well, neither am I!”

“Oh, fuck it ... on three?”

“I guess.”

“One ... two ... three.”

Sofia and Pity poked their heads up. The street below the window was once again empty. 

Had it not been for the track of green slime on the asphalt, Sofia might have believed she was imagining it all. Really, she wasn’t sure she wasn’t imagining it all. Maybe she had hit her head harder than she’d thought.

“So, what do we do now?” asked Pity.

Sofia shrugged. How the hell was she supposed to know? She’d barely had time to come to terms with last night’s failure, this morning’s robbery and then the freaking apocalypse and now she was supposed to know what to do next?

“We could try and get out of the city, I guess?”

“And you think that’ll help? No offense, but if books have taught me anything, attacks by abominations from other dimensions are rarely localised to one town.”

For a moment, Sofia was taken aback.

“Oh, don’t give me that fucking look like you think I don’t know how to read.”

“N-no that’s not it.”

Okay, that had been exactly it. She’d just assumed that a person who tried to steal cars at gunpoint wasn’t someone who used words like ‘abomination’ and ‘localised’.

“And anyway, what do you think we should do?” she said, mostly because she wanted to change the topic. She didn’t really expect Pity to have any answers.  
.  
“I suppose we could leave town.”

“Wait, but you just said...”

“Listen... what’s your name anyway? I don’t want to keep calling you ‘You there’.”

“Sofia.”

“Listen, Sofia, do I look like a woman who knows what the fuck she’s doing? The only other idea I have is hiding in here until these ... these things go away and you don’t exactly look like you’ve got a well-stocked pantry! Your plan is the only one we have!”

“I suppose we can try. I’ll just grab a backpack and ... whatever I can find that looks useful, I guess?”

“Sounds good.”

It didn’t take Sofia long to scour her tiny apartment. And Pity hadn’t been wrong about the state of her ‘pantry’. All she found was a half-emptied bag of chips and some stale cookies. After a few minutes, she returned to Pity.

“Maybe you should take that sewing kit, too.”

“I guess.”

Sofia grabbed the sewing kit. She still remembered when she’d gotten the package in the mail, with that letter written in her mother’s immaculate handwriting: “This is just a little gift to encourage you to get back in touch with what is good and womanly.”

And then, two months later, the last thing she had heard from her family: “I don’t want you contacting your sisters until you have repented and changed your evil ways. You’re a sinner and you’re going to hell and I’m not letting you drag this family down with you.”

Suddenly, Sofia knew. Her knees buckled.

“Hey, you okay? … Oi, Sofia, don’t you dare faint on me now!”

“Shit, Pity, don’t you see...”

“See what?”

“We’re in hell, aren’t we? That’s why everything’s so weird! That’s why nobody’s around but us and why these things are here!”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I didn’t realise. I was expecting fire and brimstone but ... don’t you realise, Pity, this isn’t the apocalypse. The world is just fine. It’s us who died.”

“Wow, you really hit your head hard.”

“No. Well, yes, maybe. How else do you explain this?” Sofia waved her hand at the window. “We died in that car crash, don’t you see?”

“If we’re dead, then why was I bleeding like a stuck pig just now?” asked Pity and waved her injured arm.

“BECAUSE WE’RE IN HELL!” shrieked Sofia. “And you tried to rob someone and I’m ... I’m ... sinful. We’re dead. We’re in hell.” She couldn’t see through her tears, couldn’t breathe…

“Listen. Sofia. Listen. LISTEN DAMN IT!“ Pity had grabbed Sofia by the shoulders and was holding on tight. “We’re going to leave this apartment now and we’re going to get out of this city, okay? People probably just spotted that tentacle thing before us and ran the hell away. We’ll find them. Just ... fuck, you know your way around this neighbourhood better than I do, so calm down and tell me where to go. Please.”

Sofia tried to get air into her lungs, but it hurt. It hurt so much.

“Please. Just ... just breathe slowly, okay? We’ll get out of here together. I promise.”

Finally, some air made it past the invisible barrier down Sofia’s throat. Relief flooded her body, washing away the thoughts of hell for just a second.

“You with me?”

“I ... I think so,” Sofia gasped.

“Think you can show me the way? I promise, I’ll be right behind you.”

Sofia nodded.

\-----------------------------

It wasn’t easy to tune out the poison-coloured sky or the eerie emptiness of the streets once they left Sofia’s flat, but the tentacle was nowhere to be seen and Pity’s hand on her shoulder brought Sofia back to – back to whatever this was – every time she was close to freaking out. 

It felt nice. And if something here felt nice that meant this wasn’t hell, right? But then why had they been walking for what felt like hours without seeing a single living being apart from each other? Why, despite being so injured, hadn’t they just keeled over and died, if they weren’t already dead?

“A few more hours and we’ll be out on the highway. Just keep walking, okay? Don’t go weak on me now.”

“O-okay...”

They kept walking, Pity following Sofia with a hand almost constantly on her shoulder like a blind person seeking guidance, but really, Pity was the one doing the guiding.

They had almost reached the road to the highway when Sofia saw something in the distance that made her throat constrict. There was a green wall, blocking the road they’d been planning to take.

“That’s not good.” Pity had seen it too. “Okay, maybe it’s not as bad as it looks. Don’t panic just yet.”

They walked slowly to the green wall. Pity was the first to reach out and touch it.

“Ew.”

Sofia frowned at her.

“It feels a bit like jello.” Pity felt her way along the wall. “Still kind of solid, though. Let’s see if we can get through some other place. Just keep breathing, alright?”

Sofia tried, she really did, but it was getting more and more difficult with every inch of the green wall they discovered. It was almost like someone had built a big fence around this part of the city. Like they were in a freaking enclosure and there was no way out. Sofia’s knees felt weak. She stumbled and fell against the jello wall.

Pity’s voice seemed to be reaching her ears from far away: “Come on. We need to keep going. We’re going to get out of here.”

There was a noise like the seal of a bottle popping, only much, much louder. Pity started to tear at Sofia’s arm much more insistently. “Oh shit. Sofia! FUCKING HELL, SOFIA! GET UP! Ohshitohshitohshit!”

Sluggishly, Sofia turned her head. Some distance away, another black hole had opened up in the sky and a tentacle was slowly feeling its way out of it.

For a moment, Sofia tried to get up, but her legs were so weak, she was so tired. And what was the point, really. They were in hell, no escaping the eternal torment that thing would probably bring them once it caught them. Might as well get the waiting over with.

“Sofia! Damn it! GET THE FUCK UP! I swear to fucking God, if you don’t get your ass off the ground...” She could feel Pity try and lift her off the ground. She was stumbling and staggering. The thing was only a few feet away. Pity tried to run with Sofia on her back, but it was so fast. Sofia closed her eyes and clenched her fist, expected unimaginable pain to hit her at any second.

And then the tentacle caught up with them. It wrapped itself around their bodies. Lifted them off the ground. She heard Pity scream.

But ... it didn’t hurt. In fact, nothing hurt. The pain in her head, her aching muscles, her screaming lungs ... it was all gone. She felt light as air. And the moment she realised that, she felt something ... heard something ... she didn’t really know whether it was coming from inside herself or from the tentacle wrapped around her, whether it was words or a feeling or a melody, but it seemed to be saying: “Don’t be afraid. You’re safe now.”

Sofia relaxed in the tentacle’s grip.

“This is weird,” she heard Pity whisper next to her as they were being dragged upwards towards the green sky. “But nice.”

They’d reached the hole in the sky now and passed through it. The tentacle set them down softly at the edge of the hole. The ground felt weirdly wobbly and yet, Sofia wasn’t afraid of falling. She looked up to where the tentacle was now withdrawing. It was long. Much too long to see what was on the other end of it. She looked down again, at the planes of green – something. Somewhere in the distance, there were other holes. Dozens, no hundreds, maybe even thousands of them, all the way to the horizon. And there were people! Actual people! Standing around the holes in little groups! Climbing up or down tentacles reaching down into the holes! She would have run over immediately, but the look on Pity’s face stopped her.

“I think I might have to sit down for a moment. This has been a really weird day,” Pity whispered staring at the smooth unmarred skin where her clumsy stitches had closed a gaping wound only a few moments ago. She sat down at the edge of the hole and let her legs dangle through it.

Sofia nodded and sat down next to her.

For a while they just stared silently at the empty husk of a city below them. Sofia wanted to say something, but she didn’t know what.

“You know, my full name’s Serendipity.”

Sofia looked up at Pity. Now that her face didn’t look so bruised and battered anymore, she looked unbelievably soft. Sofia could barely stop herself from reaching out and touching her.

“That’s a really pretty name.”

“It sounds like I was born in a hippie commune.”

“And you weren’t?”

Pity ... Serendipity ... laughed. “Do I look like it?”

They fell silent again for a moment. Then Serendipity looked over at Sofia: “I’m sorry about trying to rob you. If it helps, I never intended to shoot you. That was all just bravado. The gun wasn’t even loaded. I’m not a killer.”

She looked so pained that Sofia was tempted to hug her. She had practically forgotten about the robbery. “It’s been a weird day,” she echoed Serendipity’s sentiments.

“I know it was a fucked up thing to do. I was ... I was trying to get away from my boyfriend.”

“Your boyfriend?”

“Yeah, he wasn’t a great person. I thought he might kill me if I didn’t get out but I didn’t have any money. I panicked. I’m sorry. God, I don’t even know why I’m telling you all of this. Not like it excuses anything.” Serendipity sat by the hole, hanging her head.

“Don’t,” said Sofia and reached over to lay her hand on Serendipity’s shoulder. “I don’t even care about any of that anymore.”

“I killed us, though, I guess. If this is death...”

“You know, I tried to kill myself last night,” said Sofia. “I just didn’t quite manage.”

She didn’t know why she had said it, except it felt like the right thing to do.

“Oh, so that’s what those letters were about.”

“Yeah.”

The two women stared at each other for a moment.

“Didn’t turn out so badly, though,” said Sofia and looked around. In the distance, a couple of kids were playing tag around one of the holes and laughing loudly. “I don’t think this place is hell after all.”

“Or if it is,” said Serendipity, looking right at Sofia, “hell is beautiful.”

Sofia smiled. “You’re beautiful,” she muttered under her breath.

“What did you say?”

Sofia took a deep breath: “I ... I kind of want to kiss you.”

Serendipity didn’t answer.

“I... is that okay?”

Serendipity nodded with a smile and pulled Sofia closer.


End file.
